Menu
  • News
  • About and Contact
    • About
    • Contact
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • Email updates
    • RSS feed
    • Voices from our Research
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past Events (since 2015)
    • Trade for Change Workshops
    • Film screenings
    • Facebook events
  • Writing and Media
    • Writing
    • Book
    • Media
    • What Moves Us

Voices

The following represent a random sampling of voices from those activists and organizers who participated in our research project. To see more, refresh this page.  Use the tag cloud to the right to navigate by theme.

Dispelling the myth

I4

I think a major part of what the Left needs to do now is to dispel this myth that capitalism can ever actually create a sustainable future.

Apocalyptic futures

I17

[The future] could go either way. It could be so good or it could be so awful and there seems to be this almost masochistic yearning for an apocalyptic future. Almost self-destructive, you know, it's all bad...it's all going to fall down. People seem to almost anticipate that [but] I don't think they get the implications of it.

State violence and movement strategy

I30

I think if you've got enough people you can take a stand in any way to prevent stuff. But let's face it, the state has all the firepower, all the guns, and all it takes is an excuse and they'll use it….So when [the state] move[s] in they have every right in their mind to come in and surround and corner people...but if you defend yourself, if you resist that then you're the aggressor.

Winning

I1

At a base level, winning would mean workers control the means of production and community control of resources around us. I think it would be breaking down and getting rid of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia and other issues. Winning would mean ensuring that there's no one who's living in poverty at all. Winning would mean that kids have opportunities, that beginning at an early age whether it's early childhood education or making sure they've got food. Winning would mean a sense of communities being able to come together and make decisions that are relevant to their lives and have those decision-making processes matter in a way that they don't today. Winning would mean an entire transformation of society.

Engaging the system

I3

I do believe that...there's not much difference between political parties that are offered to us. For example, the Conservative Party that is in power right now is so far right that it is shifting the cultural paradigm in Canada, right now, to the right, I think more than any other party has done so far and I think that's really dangerous and that affects many people concretely. All the social programs that are cut, all the policy changes that are happening at different levels, for example immigration, that has concrete immediate effect[s] on many people who are marginalized and have very little influence in our society and have a serious lack of security. So engaging with the political system that we have now in terms of achieving imperfect...short, term goals that have a concrete, immediate impact on people I think is important.

Spiraling crises

I31

It's well within the realm of possibility that we will see...increasing...violence and warfare precipitated by [climate change]....Sociological instability will continue along with ecological change.

The limits of telling a better story

I13

People on the left have this conceit that if only we explained things better to people then the scales would be lifted from their eyes and they would all realize that [the source of their problems is] really capitalism after all. That's not necessarily true….the [first] problem with [this focus on] framing is that it's simplistic….and the world isn't simple. So we rankle at the idea of simplifying things for good reasons. The second reason is that it's not an equal fight, it's not like we're both starting out from the same situation on the right and the left….they're in an open competition and….of course the right has power behind it.

Practicing solidarity

I1

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, it was a debate around mass organizing versus propaganda of the deed and that was the way it was framed….I recall those debates throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s and I recall really sharply [that] the spokescouncil meetings leading up to the WTO in Seattle gathered different communities from the Pacific North-West, from Washington state, or Oregon, or BC and [they advanced] very different approaches. By that time, we had developed a fair amount of respect for each other...[and] many of those debates were had in pretty fraternal ways and played out better than maybe they have most recently.

Winning right now

I14

So, short term what would winning mean to me? I would like to see the Canada health act pass into legislation right now. I'd like to see [the former] NDP government pushed on a variety of different fronts from below to keep it to the minimum promises it made and I'd like to see the beginnings of building some kind of mass progressive movement here in Nova Scotia. That to me would be the short term win.

Managing dissent

I7

I think there's something to be said for keeping our internal struggles internal. Stephen Harper does that really well and that's not say again that we need to become authoritarian or hierarchical. It's just to say that if we're going to argue about whether we're libertarian or communist or something else we should not argue about that in the Chronicle Herald. We should not split our broader leftist movement apart publicly.

Share this:

  • Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Available now!

What Moves Us: The Lives and Times of the Radical Imagination

Themes

WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near '-testimonial-category ON posts.ID = tr_easy-testimonial-category.object_ID I...' at line 3]
SELECT DISTINCT tt2.term_id AS tag_id FROM wp_posts as posts INNER JOIN wp_term_relationships as tr2 ON posts.ID = tr2.object_ID INNER JOIN wp_term_taxonomy as tt2 ON tr2.term_taxonomy_id = tt2.term_taxonomy_id INNER JOIN wp_term_relationships as tr_easy-testimonial-category ON posts.ID = tr_easy-testimonial-category.object_ID INNER JOIN wp_term_taxonomy as tt_easy-testimonial-category ON tr_easy-testimonial-category.term_taxonomy_id = tt_easy-testimonial-category.term_taxonomy_id WHERE posts.post_status = 'publish' AND tt2.taxonomy = 'easy-testimonial-category' AND tt_easy-testimonial-category.taxonomy = 'easy-testimonial-category' AND tt_easy-testimonial-category.term_id IN (129,174,278,163,40,192,169,289,286,88,109,134,184,288,157,279,187,6,173,200,249,209,229,159,178,101,72,183,25,287,198,180,281,156,108,280,179,196,190,176,275,199,244,197,298,285,170,277,228,276,283,162,64,185,194,189,217,274,61,293,202,301,158,290,297,111,291,195,63,69,207,182,292,295,299,8,188,284,24,296,302,193,201,191,177,282,300,172,140,294)

black bloc insecurity unions police imagination political parties money family work control leadership solidarity food movements globalization ideology outreach memory alienation anarchism resistance revolution identity history Industrial society wealth capitalism oppressions burnout radicalism winning equity patriarchy struggle futures prisons poverty community protest cooperatives Communism power labour movement activism housing security state electoral politics reform privilege repression alternatives Zapatistas ecology climate anger education intersectionality Canada isolation marginalization crisis class relationships sectarianism people of colour fear colonialism Indigenous institutions economics failure technology alter-globalization immigration collapse violence barriers women success tactics organizing democracy corporations the state youth strategy hope reproduction resources communication

Follow Us!

Follow Us on FacebookFollow Us on TwitterFollow Us on SoundcloudFollow Us on RSSFollow Us on Subscribe for email updates

Radical Imagination

Copyright 2025


I am one theme by SKTThemes.

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.